[LAU] Mixer for recording and live

[Brent Busby]

Joe Hartley <jh at brainiac.com> writes:

> I've been doing a lot of reading on this board!  It looks like the USB
> is full duplex; it will send 24 channels (20 + the stereo "playback" + 
> stereo mains) out and receive 22 channels (20 + "playback").
>
> On paper, USB 2.0 will provide enough bandwidth for all channels, but the
> devil will be in the details.  Coming from the live sound perspective, the
> workflow here is really nice, and the USB channel inserts should allow 
> interesting things.  One forum had a discussion about using this along
> with Harrison Mixbus to master and get the bonus of the board's analog
> summing which could be an amazing thing.
>
> I will definitely give some feedback on this when it finally ships!

Now I'm starting to get interested, and I didn't think I was even
shopping for a mixer.  (I do know someone who is though.)

My questions would be:

- How Linux-friendly is the USB support?  Does it revert into some sort
  of "class-compliant" mode that handicaps most of the fun if you try to
  use it outside of Mac/Windows world, without a special closed driver?

- Do the channel EQ's feature a bypass/defeat button, to let you take
  the EQ out of the circuit?  I've run into some mixers that have fairly
  obnoxious coloration in their EQ even with all the knobs at "neutral"
  settings, and no way to turn it off or dial it out.  I wouldn't
  imagine SoundCraft is typically like that, but I've seen it on others.

- What's the quality of the converters like?  Being that it's 2015,
  that's almost become an anachronistic question.  Almost nobody makes
  "bad" converters anymore...but it's still a concern for me anyway.